As the rain softly, persistently falls, I am reminded of my heart’s home, Kauai, where the rain is warm and it tickles your hair, your eyelashes and your whole being.  I am content with the rainfall, unlike most, who desire the melting sun, only, to quench and inspire their souls.  My soul/spirit yearns for the mixture, the lines and movement of the clouds with the warmth and healing of the sun and the rainbows that follow the wetness of the earth.  I love it all, together; that is one reason (of many) I love Hawaii.

Thus, I take you to another place, dear reader: the tender yet powerful voice of Andrea Borcelli moves my grateful heart, as I begin to leave the restroom of Venice.  The upscale, authentic-feeling restaurant in the heart of downtown Denver soothes my very being; I am here with my daughter and her papa, who are both two of my favorite people on this earth.  I feel gratitude deep into my bones and my blood that Hayley’s dad has brought us here in his beautiful black hybrid car, with comfortable leather seats and an engine so quiet it is as if we are gliding along the clouds; we are here to celebrate Hayley’s eighteenth birthday and I feel strangely flattered—and totally honored—that she has chosen to be with her parents instead of her boyfriend or her other friends.  We three are blessed beyond reason just to be in one another’s lives (as a friend reiterates that thought, knowing that our situation is more unusual than not) and Bob is not only cash wealthy, his heart speaks endless amount of riches. 

In the restroom, however, I pause, in front of the mirror and cry.  (Could it be the white wine and/or time of the month?)  I momentarily take fault for breaking up our sweet little family, sixteen years ago when I ask Bob to leave our home.  Could I have “survived” in our marriage?  Would I have grown, spiritually, if I had stayed, against my better/wiser judgment?  Would I have been as propelled in my growth, could I have circumvented around our marriage and soared, nevertheless?

I wipe my tears and leave the restroom to join Hayley and Bob at our table.  It’s been a challenging month: Hayley has her senior recital, asking Bob and I to join her onstage for an impromptu-type piece, with a few other friends; the idea unravels me, as being in the limelight has never enticed me, especially.  We pull it off flawlessly, however, in fact much better than any of our longer-winded and haphazard practice performances.  I am glad I can do that for Hayley, glad that it goes beautifully for her sake.  She has given me so much over the years, that giving back is vital.  It sounds funny—contradictory, in fact.  Yet that is what it has felt like—her giving to me, rather than my giving to her.

Sometimes I ask her how I have fared, as a mom.  And thankfully she answers that she learns much from me and I can see that in her every day choices.  At the tender age of fifteen, she becomes intimately engaged in the Course in Miracles, living life in love, not fear.  She understands the Course more fully than most adults, absorbing it through her very soul, moved to tears as the miracles teacher speaks to us all. 

Perhaps that is part of my dilemma as a mom who is also shifting/transitioning into a life more completely lived.  As Hayley turns eighteen, I realize that my life is taking a new course, a different path than before, to maneuver and to discover.  I read in, When You’re Falling, Dive, by Mark Matousek,

“Doubleness comes as a revelation. The realization that every experience has two sides, even seemingly monolithic distress, turns the mind around.  There is always a mystery face to experience, including the most painful episodes.” 

The different parts of me (“parts is just parts) all swarm around for attention and I know that one of these days they will converge into one complete human being; until then life leaves me a bit flummoxed.

Lately, I notice aches and stiffness in my joints as I arise from sitting for more than half-an-hour at a time, or standing still in chilly weather.  I realize that my body is metamorphasizing, as a butterfly, birthing in stickiness and stiffness, reaching toward its unlimited freedom yet also in its slow and perhaps achingly way, each movement a reminder of the tiny, confining place where it has just been.  Perhaps its tightness propels it toward the light of change, opportunities, and freedom of flight.  Damn this shifting/changing/metamorphosis stuff!

I notice how my physical body is closely connected with my spiritual/emotional/intellectual/psychological being.  And my body’s way of talking to me is its aches and pains; I agree with Louise Hay when she talks about how these irritations are infinitely connected to our emotional states of mind.  It just makes sense that when I feel afraid, my knees buckle-up under me, or my shoulders bear the weight of my entire body; telling me I need to work on myself from the inside-out, in order to heal myself. 

I go in and out of deep fear, these days.  The dark hole beckons me, occasionally and it’s painful.  I either decide I’m never going to eat again, or I stuff my face, telling myself that it’s okay because life is currently so challenging. 

And Hayley always seems to challenge me most, at these times...she asks me to drive us somewhere she doesn’t know how to get to and I stick her key in the ignition, only it doesn’t go anywhere; it doesn’t turn and it feels good and stuck, hard-stuck and Hayley yells in my approximate direction (in my ears), “You’re breaking my car, mom!”  If only.  And I want to say, I might break your key, but your car happens to be stronger than I am...and yet I hold back, hissing inside.  Which feels good, yet her angry words reverberate around inside her precious car.

Both our lives feel as if they are being yanked out from under us.  And they are.

And on the night of Hayley’s Senior Recital (that both her dad and I participate in, on stage), I gripe to my girlfriend Mary, “I feel as if my head is on backward.”  She chimes in with, “Yeah, well I feel like a chicken without a head.”  Her daughter graduated last year; it doesn’t make me feel too easy that she’s still experiencing empty nest syndrome a year later, even worse than I am, the year of. 

On this night of Hayley’s recital (a night like any other), I learn: humility, self-worth and grace.  We grow together, Hayley and I, almost as if I am twenty years younger.  Yet it doesn’t seem to matter, we are growing together anyway, sharing bodily aches and pains, emotional turmoil and relationships that bend and creak, crack and fall and sometimes, when we are both very lucky...flourish and shine.  And we graduate together, mother and daughter, flowing from a veering path and into the rest of our lives.